Dr Oscar Rebello
As we are all morbidly fascinated by the mind-boggling murder of Ketan Agarwal, allegedly by his fiancée Siya Goyal, just another girl next door. And as our attention is equally focused on the devious heist by the Ram Mandir trustees, shattering the faith of millions, there is another incident in the news which I fear may get buried under the Prime Time rubble.
Fayaz Premji, an obvious psychopath, allegedly laced pellets with zinc phosphide (rat poison paste, available ubiquitously) and distributed them to Muharram mourners in Bombay to bump off thousands. Just a whim, obviously, from his criminally devious mind. Some people in the procession consumed them as immunity boosters before someone raised the alarm, and Premji was apprehended with weapon-grade zinc phosphide in his arsenal. These are two indisputable facts.
Zinc phosphide, or rat poison, is as easily available in our country as vada pav. Zinc phosphide ingestion almost invariably kills, except in very, very rare cases, and there is nothing we in the medical fraternity can do about it. Basically, it works by starving the cells of oxygen, entering the mitochondria, and invariably destroying your liver, lungs and heart in double-speed time.
It kills. No escaping that. I still recall my days in GMC, when young people would consume it as a means of suicide. And then beg us to do something to save them after regretting their actions. The haunted eyes of many of those doomed lovers (mostly) never leave me. There are antidotes for organophosphorus pesticides, for overdoses of sleeping tablets and other addictive substances. But nada. Zilch. Nothing for rat paste. It is a death sentence, unless you are very lucky and that sentence gets commuted.
The point I am trying to make, therefore, is that Premji has now raised the stakes. From suicide to murder. Mass murder at that. It would make for a brilliant Agatha Christie novel if it wasn't so terrifying.
So these are my three limited points.
1. Every country has strict, very strict regulations on how rat poison is sold. Most countries in Asia, including China, have banned it outright. In Western democracies, every gram sold is recorded and traced. In any case, Western democracies have evolved into committing mass murder with guns. Rat poison is so boring.
2. By all reports, this guy Premji laid his hands on kilograms upon kilograms of zinc phosphide. As we are busy supporting or opposing cockroaches, this genius was going after humans. Also, is it possible, just possible, that since Premji was targeting his own community and not people like us, we don't seem to want the headlines or our TV anchors barking at us every night? Just asking.
3. Zinc phosphide (rat poison) is a bioterrorism product. No debate. It is easily available, has a mildly bitter taste, is almost odourless and, most importantly, never kills instantly. You could drop dead of a cardiac arrest days later, and no one would be any the wiser if someone had laced your food with it sometime earlier. So those unfortunate people who took Premji's tablets still need to be watched.
Just so that we can get some legislation to completely ban, or at least strictly regulate and monitor, its sale. Try this hypothesis. Imagine you wanted to bump off a politician or a minister. All you had to do was drop some rat poison into a dish he was consuming, and Bob's your uncle. Your dead uncle, in this case. Before more and more disgruntled elements in society get ideas like Premji, Zinc phosphide must be banned. Now.
This is lethal. This is dangerous. And, importantly, some whacko has discovered it can be used to murder. Wake up and smell the garlic, people. Zinc phosphide actually smells just like that.
